Scarlet Shocker

Part of me feels dirty

Impervium makes a good point. All the "best" Marvel properties had been sold off already... but then nobody actually realised Blade was a Marvel movie. I'd argue that nobody knows much about Superheroes other than Batman, Superman and Spiderman - or at least they didn't until the 21st century. I'm not sure Daredevil was better known than Iron Man or Hulk... but Marvel was desperate to sell the rights because it kept the House of Ideas alive ... ultimately we all win, however tortuous that journey was (which makes it intersting in itself.) Superhero fatigue is not a thing. MCU fatigue is very much a thing. James Bond has been going for 50 years on the silver screen because the Broccoli family (partly due to financial constraints) don't release a constant stream of movies. Sometimes you have to wait 6 years for something mediocre... but people still go. Because it's Bond, James Bond. Marvel have a policy of releasing 2 blockbusters a year with average content. So of course there's not just fatigue but disappointment. We had a decade of amazing content in the MCU from Iron Man in 2008... and then it was like the wedding cake of Endgame had a big steaming turd where the bride and groom should be. So disappointing despite being thebiggest grosing movie in history. So that's what causes the fatigue... promise unrealised. But I've read Marvel comics in 6 decades. I see no reason to stop now.

So I was so disappointed when my prize turned out not to be an aerial mammal

These two deserve an MMO of their very own. Oeming agrees with me on this! That said, I see much of your list of equals in a duo whereas a sidekick is more of an apprentice than anything else. The way you've described it, I'm not certain that it's much more than a customisable pet. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong. I do love the idea of a "buddy system" though - something I think levelling pacts attempted to do, but failed at miserably.

I dislike the idea of "heroes just are" but point well made. I believe origin and "raison d'etre" is important. And then once you've acquired the power of a demi-god, a pedestrian throws a rock at you in the single worst bit of writing in this game and you're toast. I actually like the concept of a level first, open end later - and 50 is a good level cap. It doesn't sound so daunting and anyhow, it's arbitrary - the game can take as long as it likes to get to 50 in a way but once you're there you can improve your powers continually doing existing and additional content. Imagine this way: Your journey to 50 gets you your powers and your slots (as per the game now) but once you're at 50 you get to enhance one or two of your powers continually over time... eventually those powers can become truly awesome and if you've got a pool of potentially up to 24 powers there's almost no limit to the originality you can apply to that character. If you then broaden the scope to say the powers you choose can have secondary effects that aren't in the original game (for example fire blast gets a high chance to confuse, or a hold gets the ability to crush an opponent seriously over time) you can have somebody who fits your ideal concept of the hero you want to create and play. I've mentioned it before but the two truly excellent things about The Secret World (other than story) was the amazing Mission system where it delivered quests of different types and skill requirements and the powers wheel which was a very original idea if imperfectly implemented.

I think many people (myself included) would love that but there's a problem: What do you replace it with? Do you scrap the entire system, or just the concept of the Well itself? It's going to require some tricky writing legerdemain, and there's a serious risk of jumping the shark into a Bobby in the Shower moment. I'm not sure scrapping the entire system is viable, many players have worked very hard for the rewards and would be rightly peeved if they went away. It would be good to see something replace it but... how and what with is a real challenge.

I guess Loki is burdened with glorious purpose to save the MCU at some ill-defined point in the future then

My personal favourites are Lady Grey TF and Kahn... I like LGTF because it takes on one of the signature enemies of the game, arguably THE signature enemy, and sticks it to them. We learn a lot about them too and it also gives us insight into The Clockwork, and to an extent redeems Hero 1 and some other heroes believed to have been MIA since the original invasion. I like Kahn for similar reasons - who doesn't love giving the beatdown to fascists? It's also relatively quick and it's great to have a boss fight at the end that remains a challenge, where the TF can be lost - something I believe is genuinely important. I loathe Imperious TF for a couple of reasons - one is its ubiquity; I find it tiresome to run frequently but more unforgivable than that is appearance of Daedalus (and to a lesser extent Imperious - he gets a bit of a pass because... well the TF is actually his ) although I quite enjoy some of the mechanics of the TF but they aren't enough to compensate for the groan. I am also a big fan of the LRSF and MLTF - but the LRSF is flawed by Recluse failing to back up his lieutenants until they are defeated. If he were to join them in battle (and with the flier present) it would make a far superior (and much tougher) boss fight.

Ancient Vampire vs Ancient Mod Band. Worth taking to the Arena. Someone's gonna end up in

You and I like very different power sets 🙂 I find it lackluster. Feel free to convince me otherwise! 😄

Dis t'read be like

If all the female signature heroines were laid end to end, nobody would be at all surprised!

So it's kind of the opposite - Defiance does connect to health but your own rather than the opponents. I can definitely see why Scourge would be more effective. A blaster was so squishy that once below 50% their health could evaporate in seconds. Scourge's effectiveness seems to be highly effective on EBs and AVs at face value

That's very cool. I mostly play on Exelsior but also Reunion

Scourge - isn't that what the Blaster inherent Defiance really wanted to be? Especially in original concept before it got bolloxed up with 2.x? Thanks for all your input. I am thinking a Rad/Cold corr is in my very near future!

Agreed. I think one of the most amazing things about this special project is just how much content a team of volunteers, some who've had to learn on the hoof, have given us since game closure. I risk sounding churlish when I wonder what the devs who were actually paid to make the game did a lot of the time. I appreciate it's not that simple - their QC procedures and sign offs probably took much more time and strenuous testing etc but imagine if this game now had some full on devs who could do the stuff the original team did.

Stalker

Perhaps we should all wait with baited breath for: Flaming Carrot: The Movie That will put the doubters to rights

This is clearly incorrect since there have been many Superhero games - Some have made serious money. The reason they don't is because accountants are not interested in making stuff people want.

Espcially noticeable on ice-based characters Suck it up! 😎

I seem to remember things differently so there's a mismatch in our recollections. What I remember is that Cryptic agreed to develop a Marvel based MMO, but because of conflict of interest, as they already developed CoH they had to make a decision to either kill of CoH, stop developing the new game, or quit both. NCSoft took over the Dev team (sans Jack) to remove said conflict - then Marvel pulled out anyhow and so Cryptic had to buy the rights to a tabletop MMO because they felt they needed some kind of lore to go with the game they'd got half produced. That was great for CoH in the shorter term - but in the longer term as we saw there was no independent developer to keep the City alive when NCSoft decided to kill it. But it meant that quickly after the Cryptic/Marvel announcement the dev teams were split so it was not an issue by then. All the dev team that counted moved with CoH. I do remember Melissa saying they hoped CO would be a success because there was space in the ecosphere for a 2nd Super MMO (the diablo based Marvel game wasn't yet out) and they had many friends on the CO team so they wanted them to do well.

That would be surprising if it were otherwise. Superheroes. Almost everyone who plays this game has some kind of interest in them (or at the very least has a friend who is very interested.) Of course they are going to check out the competition for a number of reasons; FOMO, curiosity, checking out functionality that isn't available in the current game they play etc etc - a myriad reasons. When a new game launches that is pissing in a relatively small pool, it has to do MUCH better to be disruptive - it has to give people who play Game A a reason to dump existing relationships, characters they are bonded with, mechanics they understand and gameplay they enjoy - and persuade them to jump ship. Otherwise that new game is going to be a momentary curiosity. Its figures will spike at launch and then things will level out. But in order to do better than the old competition it has to play a blinder!

That's because there's no Dr Doom in the MCU yet.

There is a periodic change in fashion - Westerns in the 50s & 60s, Spies & secret Agents in the 60s & 70s and action movies & horror in the 80s & 90s are good examples. Marvel-derived content has spawned roughly 40 movies this century alone let alone the stuff DC and other studios have put out - perhaps we will see a change - perhaps we'll notice Marvel wake up and stop making the lazy crap it has since the terminus of the Avengers arc. It's a fair point that we people want and express a desire for change in movies as in other consumable habits. But I suspect the real reason that nobody else made a viable superhero game is they all want to make blockbusters. City of Heroes when live was highly viable, for an indy studio with limited dev team and limited budget and would have made a small team a big profit. But it wasn't bringing in enough to satisfy a huge (and greedy) corporation. That's the same for The Secret World and Champions Online - they tick over and make a bit of profit, but they don't really cover their development costs or warrant expansion - so they lie fallow and stagnant. I'd even level the same at DCUO which also withers on the vine. The reason we don't see a good superhero game is as much about economics as it is about quality of source material. Marvel/Disney wanted to bring out blockbusters relying on their IPs to bring in the punters and milking it for short term gains. I wonder if CoH's competitiors stayed alive in part because they looked at the fan reaction and PR disaster closure of CoH turned out to be for its parent company and thought "fuck that, so long as our games make money let's not anger our own fans."

I broadly agree with most of your points in the above, but I wanted to focus on this: One of the problems we saw in game was a failure by the Devs to properly complete storylines. Matt Miller one said something like "players were bored" (not a verbatim quote) with Praetoria so they moved on before completion. But one of the biggest issues with that was the story was quite bad in parts and far too long. They could have got the whole thing down in the issues we had and then moved on but there was a move to chase the newer shiny. We see it in Praetoria/Incarnates, we also saw it with RWZ and an incomplete story there. They never properly developed the in-game memes such as the Nemesis plot; the Fans created that and it could have been a perfect story to create, and get a sense of a completely unique villain group and arch-nemesis (small n, pun intended) but instead a casual hand wave and failure to engage with the fan base.) So you kind of make the point they tried to achieve repeatedly but got bored with it time after time and moved on which I found personally to be very disappointing in terms of Lore and game experience